BlackBerry Ltd. announced restructuring plans Friday, including cutting 4,500 jobs and slashing operating expenses in half during the next year.

The job cuts represent about 40 percent of its workforce. The smartphone maker also will reduce its hardware portfolio from six smartphones to four.

“As painful as these decisions are now, later people will look at this and see how this company is saving money,” said Ramon Llamas, research manager for the mobile phone practice at Massachusetts-based research firm IDC Corp. “It’s a ploy to make them more attractive to potential suitors or venture-capital type companies.”

The Canadian company, which has its U.S. headquarters in Irving, said in August that it is considering selling the business. Llamas said the restructuring plan makes it clear BlackBerry (Nasdaq: BBRY) is headed in that direction.

BlackBerry also announced preliminary second-quarter financial results that illustrate just how far the company has fallen.

BlackBerry said it expects to report a loss of $950 million to $995 million, or $1.81 to $1.90 per share, on sales of $1.6 billion. The loss will include charges between $930 million and $960 million for inventory and supply commitments related to its BlackBerry Z10 smartphone and a pre-tax restructuring charge of $72 million.

BlackBerry has under delivered on it Z10 smartphone, which Morningstar analyst Brian Colello called the company's "last big bet to come back."

"BlackBerry is clearly in a death spiral," Colello said. "The only hope is an acquisition at this point."

The company has given up most of the smartphone market to its Android, Apple and Windows competitors and held only 2.1 percent of the U.S. market and 2.9 percent of the worldwide market in the first half of 2013, according to a study conducted by IDC. In 2008, BlackBerry claimed 45.8 percent of the U.S. market as the top operating system, and 15.6 percent of the worldwide market.

When BlackBerry releases its second quarter results on Sept. 27, Llamas said he hopes the company reveals a forward-looking strategy and explains how it plans to get there.

“They previously made a mention of becoming more of a niche player, but what does that mean?” he said, questioning whether consumers’ and enterprise users’ needs are much different. “Hopefully we’ll get a little more indication of what’s going on.”

Trading of BlackBerry shares were halted Friday afternoon, pending the restructuring news. It closed the day at $8.73 per share, down more than 17 percent.